


Giving Myself Away

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Introspection, Out of Character, POV First Person, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: That man, if so he may be called, has stolen innocence from my face and joy from my laughs. He took away all those pieces of me that belonged to the little Cissy, making me an ordinary and anonymous Narcissa Malfoy, classy woman and soulless shell.





	Giving Myself Away

**Author's Note:**

> Major Out of Character. And weird pairing, but I felt like writing about it. And the song quoted is an italian one, it's been kind of hard to translate it while keeping its original meaning.   
> And... I don't know.   
> Hope this isn't too much of a mess.

_[I’m the shore of a river in flood_

_Endless_

_You cover and uncover me as if I was a swing]_

Everything I’ve ever done in my life could be reduced to those brief moments I’d actually felt alive. Every recollection, every fairytale talking about me, was destined to be the background of pale memories, that told a story without disgrace and without glory.

If I had to describe myself with just one word, I think it would’ve been ‘grey’.

Grey as the reflections in my eyes, old and tired. Grey as the November sky which I stared at with no particular reason.

Grey as I’ve become, after him.

 

That man, if so he may be called, has stolen innocence from my face and joy from my laughs. He took away all those pieces of me that belonged to the little Cissy, making me an ordinary and anonymous Narcissa Malfoy, classy woman and soulless shell.

It started almost by accident, with a brief peek at me, a gaze that lingered too much for me not to notice.

And I don’t deny it, those eyes, as much as they could disgust me, had something that made me wish to see them again, that gave me an uncontrollable desire to see them only on me.

Desires and cravings that the Dark Lord was all too glad to welcome.

 

_[Swinging on my hips_

_White and tired like you, who’s chasing me]_

“What are you thinking about, Cissy?” I shivered hearing the term of endearment my parents and my sisters used twisted by that voice so similar to a snake call, and yet I couldn’t help but be startled for how that same voice was able to arise in me feelings I had thought long gone.

Gone at the time of my ‘I do’ to Lucius.

“Nothing in particular.” I said, walking away from him, convinced that it was his proximity to seduce me. We were at my house’s living room, where he had started to spend much longer than licit. And than Lucius knew about.

“Don’t you dare lying to me. I see the wrinkles on your forehead, I see your expression and the emptiness of your eyes.” he replied, bitter. I frowned, turning to face him.

“You’re one of the best living Legimens. Why don’t you tell me what I’m thinking about?” I challenged him, aware of how much dangerous could my tone be if addressed to him.

I was never reprimanded about it. He let me answer to him as if I didn’t know what he represented, as if I was his equal. But everyone has his price, and as I had mine so he had his.

I refused the Mark, knowing that being a Death Eater was an alibi for each of their faults, and he never pressed me to become one. I believe he didn’t even desire such a destiny for me, that he thought me above that herd of deluded that ate out of his hand and that would’ve met certain death for him.

He wanted something more from me, he always said that. He wanted the woman I had no reason to search inside myself anymore, he wanted for passion to colour my eyes again, turned off a long time ago.

And that was what I gave him, the retribution I had to pay for my mild rebellion. An instalment that had become a prize, a punishment I couldn’t wait to serve. I had nothing tying me to Lucius’ bed and the Dark Lord hadn’t given in the subtle temptations my sly sister kept offering him, as if he had to be hers because she _deserved_ him.

Bella has always done everything wrong. And she was wrong also in believing me harmless, he invincible.

 

_[Slipping among my steps_

_They’re stones inside of you – inside of me_

_If you’re not the one to move them]_

That passion hidden behind the darkness of nights seemingly endless, soon became the voracity of a man and a woman that couldn’t do without each other’s body, convinced that desires born inside the mind could be tamed in the flesh.

I let him take me, and he had me in any way he thought right. And I felt him slipping inside of me, and he never bore the warmth I so much wanted to find in him, as if a act as humanly as sex could actually make him a man.

But he kept moving and moving inside of me, every time with more rush, every time as if he was scared it was the last one, hadn’t I deemed him incapable of feeling afraid, arrogant as he’d always been.

But I’d never asked him any question, and I kept letting him do whatever he pleased with my body, I let him come inside of me feeling colder and colder, before reaching a satisfaction too easy, seeing who I was with.

Then we both pretended those hours didn’t exist, but he kept following me with his eyes everytime he was at my home, surrounded by those mad people looking like starving dogs waiting for a bone. And he kept talking, almost unaware of their presence, captivated by my most meaningless gestures, which I was sure reminded him of deeper moments, where my hands existed only to satiate his body with violent caresses.

They were almost unnoticeable glimpses, but I had learnt soon to catch them on his face. They meant that night Lucius would’ve been given an order that kept him out of the house, they meant I would’ve been his during those hours we were tearing off each other’s lives.

At this point my entire existence orbited around those nights, as if he was my moon and I the werewolf, capable of hating it and loving it all the same.

Every step I took, every action, every smile... it was all unconsciously devoted to his eyes scrutinizing me incessantly.

I’ve often wondered if I was actually aware of what we were doing, if I hadn’t become a mere puppet in his skilled hands. But the more time passed the more I realized I was where I wanted to be, that I was rebelling to the life I’ve never wanted with the only other possible option I was offered.

I became unfaithful, lacking any guilt because, as much as I respected Lucius, I knew I owed nothing to a man I hadn’t chosen.

The Dark Lord was for me the paths I hadn’t taken when I was just a girl, and that now I amused myself walking. One by one, him by my side, he was following me, guiding me and stopping me as he pleased.

 

_[As if I was nothing_

_As if I was water inside water]_

It didn’t take me much to realize that when far for him I was just a piece of meat, an accessory in a house closing in on me, up to the point of taking my breath away.

 _Water in water._ That’s what I had become. A meaningless human being blending with the whole, blending with the crowd, until he came and picked me up on the palm of his hand, playing with my inconsistency, drinking me.

“Were your lips pale as your skin I think I’d have problems telling you apart from the sheets.” he always said to me, his eyes fixed on the white of my skin, opposed to the black I’d started feeling inside my soul. I was corrupted and I knew it, I didn’t have the Mark of his power on my arm, but I had the mark of his hands all over my body.

That vortex I had thrown myself in without qualms was starting to look like an obsession, a mania. He was the narcotic I couldn’t give up, the very same essence of those rare smiles on my face. Smiles that weren’t appropriate for the circumstance, smiles witnessing an almost obscene passion, symbolizing the betrayal against my husband and my sister.

But it was something I would’ve renounced only if chained to a wall, blinded, only if they had torn off my flesh and my hands, so that I couldn’t touch or be touched anymore.

I was at the mercy of the stream in a sea that was arrogantly chocking me.

And I knew nobody was going to save me, that only death would’ve torn me away from the shady waters of a love that wasn’t sane, nor real.

 

_[Weightless, breathless, griefless_

_It crushes me and you shock me_

_Then you dry me and run away]_

When the war started getting too close to be avoided, I discovered the bitter taste of fear. The lack of a skull and a snake on my arm made me useless to that mad cause, which I could’ve rejoiced for, if my role hadn’t become that of a woman waiting at home for everybody else to die.

Because that was what would’ve happened, and nobody listened to me when I dared to expose those dark omens.

Because I was just Narcissa, the coward who was going to become mother to another small monster, the object I was destined to be since I was born. The one staying there, waiting for the worst news, and that couldn’t do a thing to exorcise the fear of losing everything she had.

For the Dark Lord it was enough to keep having me as he pleased, whispering me a few dreams of limitless power that wanted to be comforting, but that had the only effect of adding up to my distress, and then he went away. I pretended I didn’t know what he did when he wasn’t in my bed, as I pretended I didn’t know what Lucius and Bella did, as I pretender I didn’t know about all the death they spread.

I was sister, wife and lover to pure homicidal madness, and I had no weapons nor will enough to make things finally change.

“You’ve got nothing to be scared for, Cissy.” he hissed, ritual answer to my every objection.

“Nothing to be scared for, my Lord? You know perfectly that Dumbledore…” he didn’t let me finish. He screamed, almost like an animal, just to shut me up. And I kept quiet, knowing that talking wouldn’t have done any good.

I was the one capable of questioning anything regarding him, until then. But saying Dumbledore’s name, daring to suppose that this war was a path toward the slaughter... I wasn’t allowed that much.

I started to learn again the art of silence, convinced that from lover he had become a second husband, and that I was destined to be once again that object he himself had forged with such expertise.

Everything was slowed down, my mind alone relished in the luxury of speed, in the luxury of peeking in the future and seeing nothing but blood and death.

But I kept it all to myself, aware that those weren’t visions, but a mere realism that none of the Death Eaters was willing to deal with.

I just offered him my body and withheld my though, because in the end this was what he had always wanted.

But I was tired to be left alone in my consciousness.

 

_[You come back then you soak me_

_And you dry out and are mine again_

_Weightless and breathless_

_I’m no shore without you]_

The last months before his fall were the worst.

Draco hadn’t long since born, and I didn’t have the strength to be a woman as well as a mother.

I saw in that child’s eyes an escape, a moment to exorcize everything around me, the lifeboat to keep me afloat when the ship would’ve sunk.

Because it would’ve sunk, and it was clear now that it was going to happen.

The Dark Lord seemed to take my maternity as an accessory fact. He thought I hadn’t changed, that I just had something else to think about.

How wrong he was when he tried to understand people.

“Cissy, you can’t keep trenching behind that child!” he yelled at me, furious. In the end, I decided to take a stand. I couldn’t have kept long to lead that life, not with him getting closer and closer to his end.

I knew I wasn’t going to bear it, and yet I would’ve had to make significant steps back. For my son, first and foremost, but a little bit for that part of me I had given to him with such an egotistical generosity.

“I’m not. I just have my prioritise, as you have yours. Life is my prerogative, death yours.” I replied, bitter as I didn’t remember I’d ever been. I don’t know whether it was the astonishment, but I survived that night.

I knew that something inside of him wanted to shut me up forever, and yet he restrained himself. I never knew the reason why I was still alive, nor he was ever anxious to tell me.

I just know those were my last words to the Dark Lord before the prophecy came true, and he became nothing more than smoke and shadows.

 

_[Tell me now_

_Tell how am I supposed to live without you_

_Won’t you please tell me now_

_Tell me how am I supposed to live without you]_

I suffered for his death. I saw confused eyes on me, eyes wondering what the reason behind that much pain was.

Lucius understood I wasn’t the same anymore, but never asked.

He was consumed both mentally and physically by that war, and kept saying that he would’ve needed time to recover from the thought that his Lord was dead and that his friends had ungracefully ended up in Azkaban.

I hated him in those moments. I knew that deeply he was satisfied of himself, satisfied because after every single atrocity he had committed in the name of the purest cowardice, he had also gained the prized of a peaceful life.

It hadn’t happened to my sister, her husband and her brother-in-law.

It hadn’t happened to anybody who had died in the name of a man, believing him a god that would’ve given them the source of pure power.

Dogs, all dogs ended up with no leash.

And I was the only one who truly understood what Voldemort’s passing truly meant, for I was the only one who he had never considered as an animal.

And every day, every minute, I wondered what would’ve happened if I hadn’t put myself first, if I had been on his side, even though aware of the madness behind his every act.

I lived of regrets and unspoken words, and yet I was resigned. I knew from the scarce visits to my sister that she hadn’t lost hope, that she felt the Dark Lord was going to come back.

Crazy Bella, that was the only one time I should’ve actually listened to her, when she was aware of what she was saying, when her devotion had a solid foundation.

And instead I kept existing trying to take away a little at a time the memory of his hands on me, the memory of his ice cold skin touching mine. The acre taste of his lips, capable of turning me into pure poison as well.

I took refuge in my son, source of my parting from him, and yet cure to any evil above me. When he grew up and I realized I had become for him nothing more than I was to his father, I felt empty all over again.

It was then that he came back inhabiting my dreams and, most of all, my nightmares.

 

_[If shining silently you stay on inside me_

_If burning and not dying you send back and turn me on_

_Stop burning me]_

When I became aware of his return, it was as that shadow of a soul I still had broke in two pieces. On a side the woman I had stopped to be fourteen years before, on the other the respectable Narcissa Malfoy, living like a puppet, devoted to her family, who didn’t have any desire of her ow, nor a will to change her life.

A simple lie I kept telling looking at myself in the mirror, in the vain hope that nobody was able to read inside of me to the point of realizing I was... _happy_ that he was alive, again.

When I saw him, it was as time hadn’t passed at all. He was horribly different from the man I knew so deeply, and yet his ways were still there, crystalized in a body stolen to the laws of time.

“Glad to see me, Cissy?” the only words he told me the first time he came to my home, with those features hiding the person he had been. The smirk I knew all too well stained his face, making it an infernal mask. I didn’t answer., because I still didn’t know clearly how I felt. My body reacted to his presence, yet my mind told me I was going to fall back into that vortex of emotion that had betrayed me years ago, that had made me such an empty woman, lacking thoughts or reactions.

He stayed next to me for hours, lost in his thoughts, without saying a word. I was that woman who had made him a human being for just once in his whole life, as if it made him feel like he owed me a debt, as if he had bargained with the Devil. He wouldn’t have given in again into that spiral of passion that had consumed us to the point of leaving only our bones, which had satiated in us those desires we weren’t able to express.

And I kept suffering his silence, incapable of breaking it, without making the first move, talking to him, explaining the reasons why we had become strangers to ourselves.

I felt his presence burning in my veins, setting my blood on fire, under a skin that, despite everything, was still desiring those hands. I wasn’t going to get rid of him, but I could at least pretend I had, keeping lying as in every single instant of my miserable existence.

I lied and he didn’t believe me, but at least I still kept a piece of that proud I’d always defended, which still made me feel human from time to time, which allowed me not to give into the flattery of lust first, of death then. It was a life consumed in regret, but it was the only one I was allowed to live.

Bound to a memory burned on my skin and unknown to the present.

 

_[Inside and out, and out you burn_

_And you consume and run away_

_Stop burning me_

_You blacken me and consume me and are gone again]_

Every day the people around me struggled to survive, while I observed them with a satisfied smirk. I had nothing of them anymore.

I lacked that longing for speed they were soaked in, suddenly back to what they were fourteen years ago, soulless puppets doing all they could for a man that, once obtained what he desired, would’ve crushed them like insects.

I wasn’t a part of them, nor I was his. I was a bystander, witness to the destruction once again under my eyes, and again forced to keep quiet about a destiny too predictable.

The Dark Lord has committed too many mistakes. He was wrong considering me as a mere toy to unleash his urges on.

He was wrong silencing me right when my words could’ve saved him.

He was wrong underestimating the enemy, overestimating himself. It didn’t matter how many times his soul had been divided, he was still a man, and I had been wrong years before in thinking he wasn’t.

A poor excuse for a human being, something disfigured and unnatural, but still a man, with all the same impulses eating away at anybody else.

I laughed about their weaknesses to ignore mine.

I wasn’t touched by what they were doing, until I stayed a witness.

It was when he took what I held most dear that I reacted. He did it consciously, he wanted to punish me for what I had done to him, for making him undergo the disease of weakness. I knew how much I loved Draco, and I believed he saw him as a rival, as the one who had denied him to play with me, as I was another doll without any will of her own.

He took him, and I couldn’t avoid it. I was force to watch inside my son’s eyes all I had given up on for pride and peace, all that would’ve led him to death.

I burned of a blind rage, without a chance to vent. Since the day the Mark has been burned on my child’s arm, the Dark Lord started looking at me differently. I could see clearly the revenge playing out in those eyes lacking of any humanity, aware that I couldn’t possibly think of reacting without revealing what reality had bounded the two of us.

And that kept binding us, somehow.

We were sick of ourselves, and he knew it. But wishing to use this sickness against me was his final mistake.

He couldn’t have imagined that I would be the one to write the epitaph on his grace.

 

_[Won’t you please tell mem now_

_Tell me how am I supposed to live without you_

_No, please, don’t tell me now (touch me)_

_Tell me how am I supposed to live without you]_

I had lied, I had given the victory to an enemy I’ve never actually felt mine. And he had died, again, forever.

In me, no trace of regret. He had way too much fun playing with what I felt for Draco, without seeing that the sword hanging on his head since he had started messing with a mother’s love.

He never saw that even for him, the man who had defeated death itself, there were some boundaries. Or perhaps he knew, but the challenge to cross them over and over was just too alluring.

I granted him his desire only in the end. I really felt that battle was mine the moment it ended, and I knew I was on the winning side. I had won my freedom, a life lacking touchable emotions, lacking the passion he had given me, but a life that was mine and mine only.

I preserve his memory in an airlock in my mind, allowing myself to think about it only in the darkest moments, but still managing to see him from afar, as if the woman laying in the same bed as him was someone else, as if I had stolen those memories from someone that couldn’t possibly be Narcissa Malfoy.

Because, with time I realized it, it really was not.

The one living off of the Dark Lord, thinking him essential as the very air she breathed, was little Cissy, the one who lacked free will.

The one become too late a woman, who had let her youth disappear alongside the man that had stolen it.

There was only cold left inside of me, a freezing cold reminding me that I was going to be nothing, that I wasn’t going to have that warmth I had desired so much, and that nobody has ever been able to show me.

Cold.

Frozen, for this is what it was expected of me.

I wouldn’t have been able to look a man in the eyes again, not even Lucius, as I looked in his, but I knew that every choices I had made had a price.

I had paid all those years of volatile emotion with my dignity. But I didn’t need it, I didn’t need pride, and my mistake was that I learnt it too late

Past was going to be buried, six feet under, destined to become the right food for worms. Left to decompose, like little Cissy.

We hadn’t belonged to ourselves in a long time, and perhaps we never did. But I don’t deny I would’ve wanted a grave to say goodbye to, a tombstone on which to burn my final farewell in blood. I didn’t blame him for what he had done, but I felt sorry for him, too blind to have ever had an actual chance.

He was and stayed a man who given himself to me, whether I wanted it or not.

And this was the only thing of him I wanted to keep. Until death.


End file.
